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Preparation Stage

So before you launch your course or online product, you need two things:

An email list

20% of your content

Let’s break that down.

Step 1: Build an Email List

If you've read anything about online marketing, you know that your email list should be the backbone of your business. It's how you gather a group of people interested in your course topic. More importantly to a launch, it is literally the only way to directly contact your tribe and notify them of a new product.

PLUS! With the right email sequence you can build trust, anticipation and urgency to increase sales.

In this post, we’re going to focus on your email sequence as your main method of launching your course. Why? Because it’s easy and reliable. Two big high fives.

From our data, we’ve found that you can rely on .02 (2%) of your email list subscribers buying your course, which means you can use our “magic formula” to predict course sales.

According to Campaign Monitor, emails convert at 3X the rate of social media. For this reason, the most effective place you can spend your time is on your list.

Step 2: Prepare Only 20% of Your Course Content

So here’s a secret, you don’t have to finish your course before you start selling it.

Think about it, when you sell your course - you direct people to your course sales page / landing page. Then people want some content but they don’t need ALL.

Check out Bree Noble, she sold her course based off of her sales page alone.

“I was able to pre-sell my online course (Female Musician Academy) to 15 people at $290 ($4,350) without having any content in the school yet. In fact, my new students told me that my Teachable school was so beautiful that they could tell the course was going to be amazing.”

In fact, I’d argue that if you wait to create your content - it’s going to be better.

Picture this, you launch your course with only the first two sections created. Someone comments in the first section that your microphone has an echo. Imagine if you had recorded your whole content using that same setup! Uh oh!

What if someone comments - I love section 2. Wouldn’t you want to create more of that? What if people are confused by a lecture and you realize you need to make it a section.

By only creating 20% of your content, you’re able to get audience feedback and adjust 80% of your content to create a more perfect (more valuable $$) course.

Drip lists additional benefits like generating revenue to finance the project, gather testimonials to help more convert and giving you a motivation to finish. All true. Consider it.

What’s especially nice is Teachable’s drip feature which allows you to automate when each section is sent out, so if you batch your work and create three sections one weekend, you can still have them sent out week after week.

With an email list and 20% of content ready to go, it’s time to launch this thang! You ready?! I know I am!

The Launch Strategy

There should be 2 phases to your launch strategy:

Education: warm up your list

Selling: sell to that list

Step 3: Educate and Provide Value to Your Subscribers

In the education phase you’re essentially warming up your list - you're familiarizing yourself with the audience and getting them thinking about your product's topic and the pain points it solves.

Someone who gave your their email address a month ago, well, they’re not ready to buy. Selling to them now is like that annoying retail clerk who follows you around when you walk in the store asking if they can help.

When you walk into a store, you want to check out the place, the merchandise, figure out if you're interested - not be bombarded by a teenager with a headset trying to make enough commission to rent a tux for prom.

So what you should do is slowly introduce yourself through your education phase.

Your goal is to generate demand for what you’re teaching by educating, creating an understanding of your product, increasing a need for the benefit AND build trust through high-quality content.

This education phase can last 0-14 days depending on how long you want to grow your list before launching. You should be sending an amazing piece of content about every 2-3 days

You should send:

Targeted blog posts

Webinars

Videos

Offer group coaching

Any type of content that shows students what you have to offer

This content is basically you stocking your shelves. It's saying, this is the kind of content I have to offer and the quality you can expect from me.

I always think of the taste tests at Trader Joes - give a little bit of cheese away so someone craves the whole darn block!

"For example, I didn’t have time to write the awesome content leading up to the launch. I also neglected to create a separate email list for interested parties and probably pissed off a few of the members of my blog newsletter with sales spam." (Btw - Steve is super honest and real about his launch in that post, check it out!)

A good schedule for warming up your list is this:

If educating over 0-7 days: Send 4 emails

If educating over 7-9 days: Send 5 emails

If educating over 10-14 days: Send 6 emails

So what do you put into these emails? Write them like a newsletter, not like sales copy - you can sign up for the Teachable Blog to get our newsletter each week.

"I was nervous about sending out so many emails and annoying people, but normally I keep my emails to about one per week, so I knew it would just be two weeks of insanity and then things would simmer down. I also knew that…HEY…I spent so much time growing my email list by providing free value that taking two weeks to promote my new product was not much to ask for. As expected, I received some unsubscribes, but nothing really out of the ordinary. One 82-year old man emailed me angrily, but aside from that, instead of angry emails, I was getting messages from people thanking me."

So now that that's solved, let's get into the emails.

DAY 1: Course teaser

On your first email you’re going to tease out the course and build excitement.

Let people know that you’re creating a course, what it’s about and that you’ll be opening it soon so they should pay attention to their email.

Use phrases like “I’ll share the fun details later.” “The excitement is killing me.” “I’ve been working hours on this for you.”

Keep upbeat and positive and generate excitement.

Here's an example from our launch of The Profitable Teacher. We'll use as many emails as possible from this launch - but we also deviated from the strategy using a few advanced tactics like a video launch series.

Let them be a guide, find your voice and sell to your tribe. :-)

DAY 2: "What's in the course" email

In this email you going to describe what's in your course. Make sure to write everything from a "sales angle" - this simply means empathizing with your readers and talking about the final benefits not features.

For example:

Bad: We provide email segmentation

Good: We provide email segmentation that let's you target interested parties and make an average of 30% more on each sale

Tell what’s in your course. Explain the various modules and takeaways and build up the value of your “bonus content.”

At the end, tell your students that your course will become available to buy tomorrow.

I would also add a click-to-tweet. You can use these tweets as social proof later. The program is free.

Here's an example - though we deviated slightly having the course open that night and not including a click-to-tweet (we already had testimonials!).

DAY 3: "Course Opens" email

This is the day! The day your course opens and you start making money.

In this email, communicate that your course is open and link to your sales page so that people can buy.

Include testimonials from the click-to-tweet or extras that you've collected while creating the sales page. If you don't have either of these, you can pull statistics from articles about your course topic that validates how important what you're teaching is.

This is a big email and you want to knock everyone's socks off.

Here's an example:

DAY 4: FAQ email

This email doesn't sound as fun and exciting to write, but it's going to save you A LOT of time in the long run.

In this email you want to answer the logistical questions about your course:

How long do they have to buy?

How long will they have access?

Is there a money back guarantee?

Are there payment plans?

Are you dripping content?

Who is this course right for?

How much time does it take?

You can answer these questions NOW or you can answer them in angry emails later.

And make that surprise banging! It should be some kind of valuable bonus content (like a workbook, consulting, a free tool) or a limited-time discount. Whatever it is, make sure it's valuable.

We didn't have this type of email in our recent launch, but we should have! If you've done this, forward your email to[email protected]and we're happy to include yours an an example.

DAY 6: "Thank You" & social proof email

At this point, you've been selling hard for 5 days, so it's time to be a little grateful and say thanks to your people. And hopefully your launch has gone well - the money has come in and you have a lot to be thankful for!

Make sure to thank everyone for reading your emails and being part of your launch. Write from the heart and in your voice.

Say "I never expected this..." and include testimonials where people rave about your course.

This kind of language also builds social proof. It shows that people have bought your course and are happy with it and you may even bring in a few additional sales here.

For our launch, we included a bunch of testimonials in previous emails. While this email can boost sales if you're struggling, you don't always have to include this email, espcially if you use your social proof in other emails.

DAY 7: Logic + Course Closing email

At this point, your launch is almost over. You're probably a bit exhausted, but hopefully excited by the amount of money you've made.

In this email, you're going to say that your course is closing. Build a logical argument for why it make sense to buy now, reference the surprise bonus and build an urgency around getting the course before it's too late.

DAY 8: "Last Chance" email series

This day has the potential to be your most profitable day. Anyone on edge is going to either buy your course now or not at all. That's why you want to finish strong and send 3 emails.

Email 1 - send at 9:00am:

Tell your list that today is the LAST day to get the course and emphasize why you have to close your doors and at what time.

Email 2: 3:00-4:00pm:

Send a mid-day reminder that cart is closing, how thankful you are and how wonderful the course launch has been.

Email 3: 1 hour before cart closes: Last chance

This is a very quick email outlining that this is the last chance to get the course, it's going away, NOW!

Make it YOU

While we've given you a pretty darn prescriptive launch strategy and our own examples, I encourage you to be yourself and make this strategy your own.

You know your audience better than anyone else, what they crave and what they hate. Remember to write to your audience and for your audience in each and every email. Show off your personality with corney jokes, italicized sarcasm or heartfelt mantras.

This course and launch is a culmination of the work you've done so far - don't hide!